The “referendums” that the Russians hold in the occupied areas of Ukraine are illegal and pure fiction.
This is a leader. The leader expresses the position of VG. The political editor of VG responds to the leader.–
In eastern and southern Ukraine, the Russians have quickly decided that people will participate in a vote to determine whether four regions will join Russia.
The result is predetermined. It will be a resounding yes.
A television host of state-controlled Russian TV could reveal it even before the weekend, although referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya continue until Tuesday.
Because these are not referendums, but pure propaganda actions that violate international law.
Russia invaded Ukraine. Putin’s regime obviously does not have the right to organize such referendums on the territory of another country. What the Russians want is to annex these regions.
They try to get a false pretext to do it.
This is the same recipe that the Russians followed in Crimea in 2014, when they occupied and then stole the Ukrainian peninsula they still control.
It was not recognized by the international community. The same goes for the new referendums. They have no legitimacy and they won’t even get recognition.
Things have been going badly for the Russians lately. They have lost parts of the areas they occupied. And they had to start an unpopular mobilization in Russia out of sheer necessity.
The referendums are part of a Russian tactic to try to scare Ukraine from continuing to fight to take back the territories occupied by Russia.
These battles are still ongoing, following a successful Ukrainian counter-offensive in early September. According to the Ukrainian authorities, in recent days they have also taken back Ukrainian land, where the Russians are holding their referendums.
The Russians, for their part, boast that international observers and journalists are following the referendums. But even this is pure show.
Many who lived in these areas fled. And those who remain are exposed to massive Russian propaganda about the “Nazis”, that is, the Ukrainians.
Standing up and saying you voted no is risky. People don’t have the courage to talk to the media. There is not even the free press left. Who is present takes care of the rectification.
People don’t have a real choice.
After Ukrainian authorities were forced to leave some of these areas in 2014, the Russians turned them into some of the worst areas in Europe.
The “people’s republics” of Luhansk and Donetsk are indicated with Freedom House like more not free of Belarus.
So it is under such conditions that people have to go and vote.
We can be sure that there will be no popular expression of will when the results arrive this week.
–
